Free Web NovelChapter 13: Picking Team Members.
The lesson ended with Soren tapping the projector twice and pulling up a clean slate on the screen behind him.
"Teams of five." His eyes moved over the room without settling on anyone. "Pick them yourselves now or later, it’s your choice. If the F-ranks haven’t been chosen by Monday, I’ll distribute them across the remaining groups myself, and one of you will be moved to a different team to make space."
Chairs scraped. Heads turned. The E-rankers in the front row started clustering clearly having already agreed on their lineup before the lesson started, while the rest of the class began the slower, more political work of figuring out who they could tolerate for a week-long expedition.
The two F-rankers in the back went very still.
I turned in my seat.
Kira sat three rows ahead of me, tablet on her desk, her dark hair loose down her back.
She hadn’t moved when the announcement landed. She hadn’t moved when the chairs started scraping either.
I leaned forward and rested my arms on the back of her seat.
"Venn."
"No."
"You don’t even know what I’m asking." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
"I know what you’re going to ask, and I’m saying no."
"Join my team."
Kira closed her tablet. She turned in her chair just enough to look at me sideways, one dark eye over her shoulder, her full lips set in a line that was somewhere between amused and tired.
She didn’t answer right away.
"No strings attached?"
"None." I smiled, finding her suspicions of my intent cute.
Her gaze drifted past me, scanning the room. The E-rank clusters had already formed up.
The boys she’d ignored in her first week were giving her wide berth. The girls she’d never spoken to weren’t looking at her.
The two remaining F-rankers in the back row, the bruised boy and the one with glasses, were watching the room with dread.
Kira’s eyes came back to me.
She nodded once.
"Okay, thank you."
"That’s the spirit."
The System chimed.
[CHOICE A: Recruit two F-Rankers to your team. Reward: C-Rank Skill — {Buddha’s Palm}.]
[CHOICE B: Recruit one F-Ranker . Reward: E-Rank Skill — {Strengthened Fist}.]
[CHOICE C: Recruit none. Reward: None.]
I chose the first option, then dismissed the screen on reflex.
A C-rank skill for an extra body on a team I was already building. The choice was obvious.
Two F-ranks in an E-rank gate were a liability on paper, but I had enough to carry them, and a C-rank skill was the kind of thing E-rank students didn’t see in their entire lifetimes.
More importantly, with my new core, this skill would be my first real active skill that I could cast without worrying about being on the verge of death once I was done casting it.
I stood up.
The back row of the classroom was twelve steps away. I crossed them slowly, hands in my pockets, and the conversations near me dropped to half-volume as I passed.
The bruised boy noticed me coming first. He straightened in his seat. The F-rank girl beside him followed his eyes, saw me, and her hand tightened on the strap of her bag.
I stopped at the edge of their row.
"You two."
The boy swallowed. "Y, yeah?"
"What are your names?"
"Tom Avery." He sat up straighter when he said it. "I, um. F-rank."
"Mia Reed," the girl said, quieter.
"Tom. Mia." I leaned a hand against the side of the desk in front of them. "Join my team."
Tom hesitated.
His eyes flicked past me, across the room, scanning the E-rank clusters.
I followed the line of his gaze. One of the boys who’d laughed at us yesterday was deep in conversation with a group near the windows, his shoulder turned away from the back row in a way that wasn’t accidental.
The boy who’d likely bullied Tom in the first place, the one with the broad shoulders and the smug grin, was at the center of that group.
I could tell that much from the hate that Tom displayed when gazing it him.
Tom watched him for a second longer.
Then he looked back at me.
"You beat an E-ranker yesterday." He said it slowly, working through it. "An E-rank water mage. You walked through her cast. You’re stronger than any of them. And none of them are going to ask me to join their team. So."
He stood up.
"I’ll join."
"Good man."
I turned to Mia. "You?"
Her eyes moved between me and Tom and the front of the room, and I watched her do the same math Tom had just done, except she was coming out on the other side of it.
Her hand was still tight on her bag strap. The lenses of her glasses caught the projector light when she shook her head.
"No. Thanks." Her voice was small but steady. "I’d, I’d rather try for an E-rank group. If one of them takes me."
"Sure."
As I was about to leave, Mia explained herself.
"You’re one person." She kept her eyes on her desk. "One strong person, but one. A full E-rank team is five strong people. I-I’m sorry."
I shrugged it off. My goal of recruiting two F-Rankers had already been fulfilled with Tom accepting. I had simply asked the girl out of favour.
Since she didn’t want to, I wasn’t going to force it.
"Fair enough."
I turned away. The System chimed again as I walked back toward Kira’s row, the blue screen unfolding in the corner of my vision.
[Reward delivered: C-Rank Skill — {Buddha’s Palm}.]
I closed the screen without reading the details. I’d look at it later.
Tom followed me, two steps behind. Kira watched him approach with a flat expression that didn’t quite hide her surprise that I’d actually done it.
"Tom Avery." I gestured between them. "Kira Venn."
"Hi." Tom dipped his head.
Kira nodded. That was the full extent of her greeting.
I turned toward the front of the room.
"Sir."
Soren looked up from his lectern. "Yes?"
"Can a team go in at three?"
Soren considered me for a moment.
Then he shook his head. "Five. No exceptions. The gate’s monster density scales to a five-person team. Anything less and you’re walking into a meat grinder."
"Understood."
I turned back to the room and raised my voice enough to carry across the seating tiers.
"My team has three. Whoever wants the last two slots, come over."
Nobody joined.
I turned back to Soren, "What do we do now? Are you going to force E-Rankers into my team?"
Soren sighed before nodding his head. "Yes."
